Call Me by My Name: the Effects of Addressing Customers by Their Names, the Underlying Mechanisms, and the Boundary Conditions

Addressing customers by name is widely promoted as a best practice in frontline service, yet its true impact on customer experiences, the psychological mechanisms underlying it, and boundary conditions remain insufficiently understood. Using a real-world field experiment capturing actual sales and upselling behavior and three online experiments, we systematically examine employee-initiated name usage as a frontline interpersonal influence tactic, its key linguistic (frequency, placement) and contextual (neutral vs. embarrassing) boundary conditions, and the psychological processes that may underlie its effects. Our findings reveal a clear duality: while employees addressing customers by name can enhance satisfaction and drive upselling effectiveness, this same practice can diminish satisfaction when overused, misused, or applied in embarrassing contexts. Further, a dual‑process mechanism emerges: rapport explains when name usage improves outcomes, whereas discomfort explains when it backfires. Taken together, this research offers new insights into the dynamics of name‑based personalization in service, conceptualizing employee‑initiated name usage as a specific personalization‑based influence tactic that carries both interpersonal benefits and potential unintended negative consequences for customers and firms.